


Put Her Back on the Throne

by archergwen



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 05:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11914368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archergwen/pseuds/archergwen
Summary: He's part of her guard, and she's his Princess. Only, she's not really "his" is she? And there's nothing at all to be done about that.





	Put Her Back on the Throne

"Heya, Bellamy."

"Heya, Clarke."

"That's no way to talk to the heir to the throne!"

Both the Princess and the young guardsman turned to look at the Head of the Guards. Clarke broke first, laughing while Bellamy moved the Princess's steed towards the stone wall she was sitting on. He began to chuckle as well while the Head Guard just looked cross.

"You've never done this before, have you, Pike?"

"You're the only one who's done this every time, Bellamy."

His hands grabbed her waist, helping her bounce from the wall to the ground and onto the horse. "Consistency is key." His voice was light as he lingered to be sure that she was well seated.

Pike raised an eyebrow. "You can stop manhandling her."

Clarke immediately leaned over - unbalancing herself so that Bellamy had to stay there to keep her from falling - and ran her hands haphazardly all over Bellamy's face and through his hair. "Is this a problem?"

"No..."

"Then Bellamy being sure I don't fall isn't a problem." She easily righted herself. "Someone else ought to go with him next time."

He let go of the reins to move to his own horse. "You say that every time."

"Eventually you'll find someone else who can keep up."

With that, her horse exploded forward, racing away from the men and furthering her flight from the castle. Bellamy cursed before quickly vaulting onto his own horse. Pike scrambled for his, but the third horse skittered away as Bellamy rapidly gave chase, leaving the Head Guard scrambling.

Clarke knew her horse well. She kept a high speed as she darted through the town, taking quick turns in an attempt to lose her pursuers. She did completely lose Pike with his miserable start, but she couldn't ditch Bellamy. It helped he was pretty sure he knew where she was going.

The two broke out of the village into an open field, a forest just a short push away. Clarke, however, pulled out of a gallop and let her mare walk to cool down - still making for the woods but at a sedate pace.

"Caught me again."

"You know, you would escape if you didn't give up." He pulled up beside her, looking at her seriously. "If today's the day you do it for real, well let's ride full speed into the woods, take the one sharp turn - yes, I know you know which one - and I'll fall off; you'll get away clean."

"No, I'll just go back to my mom and tell her the new prince she's trotted out gives me the creeps. Besides, I can't ask you, one of the best riders in the Queensguard and the one with the reputation for always catching me, to take a fall off your horse for me."

Bellamy laughed shortly. "Please, Princess. I'd fall on my own sword for you."

She recoiled. "Loyalty to the crown has never meant suicide, Bellamy!"

He glanced at her, and then away. "Yeah, well, love makes you do stupid things."

There was a beat, and then the two looked at each other as they realized he said that out loud. A rare blush spread over his tan and freckled face. One might have formed a response if Pike hadn't caught up, sending the moment scattering away.

"Are you quite finished, Your Highness?"

"Yes," Clarke replied slowly. "A good run and ride always clears my mind."

Pike looked like he was about to explode. "All this to get in some exercise?"

She raised an eyebrow as she urged her horse to the path to the castle. "Dear Officer Pike, surely you know how it clears the mind." She tsked at him, as if he had interrupted a Sunday stroll not a half-hearted bid for freedom and confession of love. "A Princess needs a clear mind."

"Then request an outing."

The look she leveled was full of disbelief at his foolishness. "You know how impossible that is, as the man in charge of assigning me bodyguards." With that final barb, she urged her horse forward into a canter, Bellamy's leaping to keep up.

"When the day comes," he managed to whisper to her at some point. "When the day comes you have to run for real, give me a day or two warning if you can so I can be out of your way."

"And I told you not to sacrifice yourself for me."

"Princess," he began, making her title sound both like an admonishment and endearment, but cut himself off with a shake of his head. "At least you know where my sister and her husband live, if you won't take my help."

She didn't know how to say what she was thinking, and some how a few years riding circles around the other guards discussing policy hadn't prepared her for this moment.

"Thank you, Bellamy."

***

The whispers are everywhere within two days, and Bellamy can't stand them.

"Can you believe it?"

"She could do so much better. Ought to be marrying a real prince."

"Could just be rumor, of course, but I hear it's to save the kingdom - that they've got something to end our worries."

"What could be worrying the queen so much she'd marry her daughter to young Lord Wallace?"

It seems that while Clarke was riding through city streets, Queen Abby was placating Lord Dante Wallace with discussions of medicine and technology. While Clarke raced into fields, the palace conversation turned to mutually beneficial trade arrangements. And while Bellamy let slip his feelings, Abby used her one bargaining chip to be sure the Mountain's technology would never slip into the hands of the Ice Nation.

And Clarke wasn't there to protest.

***

There's a candle in her window for six days before she vanishes.

Five days into that week, Bellamy starts looking pale, fumbling a little, which is still more than usual, and he barely eats. The next day he can't get out of bed for the fever and the vomiting, and he's ill the entire day. Kane, who controls everyone's schedules and can supersede Pike's scheduling, gives Bellamy three days off and orders bed-rest for that duration.

That night, the candle goes out.

***

In the morning, Bellamy is dragged from his bed by the young Lord Wallace. The guardsman promptly vomits all over the princeling's shoes, but as he's only been able to keep down water for the past twenty four hours, it's not much of a mess.

"Get up," snarls Lord Wallace. "The Princess is missing and you're supposedly the one man who can always find her."

Bellamy, in his rumpled sleep pants and nothing else for the fever, laughs. He has one leg still caught in his bed, tangled in sheets, and he's supported on his forearms just above Cage's sick-covered shoes, and he laughs.

Naturally, one of those shoes meets his face, and Bellamy wonders what happened that week he didn't see Clarke.

"I told you to get up, not laugh. I am your future king, and you will listen to me."

Braced against his bed now, Bellamy's head weakly lolls with the weight and his illness. "Oh buddy, I have no idea who you are. You're gonna have to try a little harder than that to get unconditional loyalty."

He was rewarded with another kick, this time to the gut, which he repaid with more watery bile as the Queen and her sidekick Kane burst in, Pike trailing behind with the decency to look ashamed.

"Lord Wallace, what is the meaning of this?"

The young lord turned to the retinue, and Bellamy sees the older Lord Wallace making his way though not quite there. "The Princess is missing, and this is the guard that can always find her, yet after a quick round of questioning I learned he was not among the searchers, but in his room. He was in bed, asleep, when I came in. I think he must have aided her."

The queen looked at Bellamy, who stared back unflinchingly. Her gaze flicks over the room before she turns that imperial look on the noble-blooded man. "Cage," she begins, and Bellamy catches a victorious glint as the other man stiffens visibly. "Take a look around the room and tell me what you see."

He barely glances around. "I see a pathetic guardsman's room."

"Mmmm. That is not what I see. I see blinds pulled tight against light, a common reaction for those with a fever-induced headache. Look at your shoes. He's thrown up everything in his stomach, twice, and look, all water. He's been ill for some time - and if you think my daughter didn't let him catch her, you must think me a blind mother. Your few previous indiscretions could be overlooked, as they were done in private, could be read as pre-wedding anxiety as you were bought and sold to ensure both our peoples not only survived, but thrived." Kane, to his credit, flinches, but the queen keeps going, unchanged. "This, however, cannot be overlooked. You assaulted a member of my staff. My staff, not yours."

"Not yet, anyway."

Bellamy wants to kick out Cage's legs for the insult, but Abby's look is plenty. "Not ever. This was unwarranted and public. I must congratulate you, for you held off revealing this behavior for several months, under what must have been enormous pressure. No wonder Clarke was so antagonistic towards you; she was hoping to draw it out." She turned to Dante. "I do hope we can salvage our trade relationship, but it will not be done by marriage." To Pike, she added, "please escort the two Lord Wallaces back to the guest wing."

When they're gone, the queen lays a hand on Bellamy's shoulder and he remembers she worked in hospitals for the longest time, a drug she can't seem to kick. "How do I look, doc?"

He imagines Pike being incredibly flustered at his familiarity with the royal family, but he can't help it - especially with Kane, practically his on-and-off father.

"You look like you took a cocktail of something roughly two days ago so you'd be sick on purpose."

Bellamy, sitting properly against his bed, looks at the queen with his too pale and sweaty face and tries to lie through his teeth without lying. "Now Your Majesty, why in the world would you do that?"

"Same reason you're the only one my daughter won't run away from." She stands, brushing her hands on a pair of pants that probably cost more than his life. "A Prince Consort doesn't need to bring a fantastic alliance or trade resources to the match, Officer Bellamy. But he ought to bring integrity, honor, loyalty." Kane is smirking, the old gossip. "Bring my daughter back, and we'll talk more."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

She almost breezes from the room, but something snags in her mind and catches her hand on the doorway. "Oh, and Bellamy?" She waits for his eyes to meet his. "Thank you."


End file.
